Help From Coal Hill
by MilwaukeeTimeLady
Summary: The Doctor and Chastity find something...not quite right while travelling. The Doctor now needs the help of two of his former companions to put a stop to this menace.
1. The Doctor Needs Assistance

**Coal Hill Secondary School- January 23, 2019**

The Doctor walked into the classroom. Ian had told her that Barbra was teaching a class in 320- ironically the same class she had told Chastity to 'shadow'. Well, here she was in 320, and Barbara was most certainly helping teach the class. The desks were arranged in neat, vertical lines, and a student sat at each and every one of them. Most were taking notes, but one girl was on her phone, or at least the Doctor assumed she was, considering no one just stared down at themselves and laughed. Or, at least girls didn't. Some very vain boys might. Barbra, however, didn't seem to notice this, and was talking about what people in the far future might think of Earth's culture. It was strange, the Doctor mused. Human's in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries taught classes much more different than classes on Gallifrey. But, she assumed it was because of how undeveloped the Human's were. If she had had a phone, and had been going on it during her lectures at the University, her teacher would have had her kicked out faster than you could say 'Dalek'.

"In about a thousand years, archeologists will uncover Coal Hill Secondary School- Abigail." Apparently Barbra did notice her pupil on her phone. "Kindly not go on your phone while I'm teaching. Mrs. King told me, and I told you that you would be tested on this tomorrow."

"I don't care about some dumb test. Plus, you're just a sub. What can you do?" the girl, Abigail, snorted from where she sat next to Chastity. The Doctor's current companion looked at her neighbor, a look of disgust on her face. The Time Lady began to say a mantra in her head.

 _Don't interfere, don't interfere, don't be like Barbra, don't bloody interfere._

But the mantra seemed to be useless. "You shut your mouth." Chastity burst out. She never could stand disrespect. Abigail turned to the Scottish girl, sneering. Sensing that things were about to get messy, the Doctor cleared her throat.

"Excuse me. Are you Miss Wright, by any chance?" she asked, walking fully into the classroom from where she had been standing in the doorframe. Barbara looked up from the textbook, saw the newcomer, and turned toward Abigail and Chastity.

"Both of you, see me after class." Abigail didn't look guilty at all, but Chastity was beet red, and looking up at the Doctor like a puppy who'd just been beaten. "I'm sorry. One of them is a shadow, and her host isn't being a good role model."

"Yes, I know. She's my...erm...not my granddaughter, my erm…" The Doctor trailed off.

"I'm her niece!"

"Yes, yes, my niece. She's definitely my niece. I have a niece. Yup. Definitely." The Doctor chuckled awkwardly, aware now of the entire class staring at her, and Barbra looking at her quizzically. She cleared her throat again. "Yes, well...may I have a word with you and Mr. Chesterton as well after class? It's rather urgent, I'm afraid."

"Of course." she turns to Abigail and Chastity. "Come here after school. No excuse. And Chastity, with your behavior today, I do _not_ think you will be accepted." As soon as Barbara said this, the bell rang, causing there to be a symphony of chairs grinding across the floor and the buzz of chatter. Barbra raised her voice over all of it. "Now remember, do the review on page 134 for homework. Mrs. King will be back tomorrow, and she will test you on it. Have a good day!"

The students began to surge out the door, heading for their next class. As Chastity walked past her, the Doctor grabbed her arm and pulled her aside. Taking the psychic paper out of her pocket, she handed it to Chastity. "Go and get Ian Chesterton from the office. If anyone stops you, you just need to show them this and tell them who you're getting. It will transport your thoughts onto the paper, and cause them to see a hall pass. You understand?"

"It's magic paper?" Chastity breathed, looking at it like it were made of gold. The Doctor chuckled, and began to nudge her out the door.

"I guess. Now go get Mr. Chesterfield."

"Chester _t_ on, Doc- oh sorry. Auntie Smith." she smiled wryly up at the Time Lady, The Time Lady shook her head.

" _Go!_ "

Chastity was the last person out of the classroom, but the buzz of chatter could still be heard in the halls, along with the occasional, 'Stop stalling and get to class!'. The Doctor walked back towards the windows, and feigned looking out at the street. In reality, she was observing her former companion, Barbara Wright- well, Chesterton now. She had to hold in a smile when the history teacher said that she had married the science one. They always had acted as if they were married when they travelled with her- and she had shipped. Hard. (Bill had taught her the word after the 'Pope in the bedroom' incident.)

Barbara was still sitting at the chair in the front of the class. She was wearing a dark blue sweater with a white shirt visible underneath, and a long black skirt that went to her ankles. Always so professional, the Doctor thought to herself. Barbara's once brunette hair had turned pale white, the same colour as her husband's. She had grown it out of the 60's haircut, however, and it fell to her shoulders- or at least it would if it hadn't been pulled back into a ponytail. Other than the normal signs of age- wrinkles, the slight change in her voice, stiffness in her movement- Barbra acted the exact same as she remembered her. Ian too. Even in fifty-six years...

"I know you're staring at me, you know." Barbara sighed. The Doctor bit her lip, embarrassment rushing through her. She should have known better than to believe that trick would fool her. She was too sharp for that.

"Sorry. It's just...nothing. Never mind." the Doctor was about to say that she knew her, but stopped herself. It would be easier to explain it when Ian got here.

"It's weird, but...you remind me of someone." Barbra gets up from the chair with a small grunt. The Doctor moved a bit in concern, but Barbra waved her off. "Don't bother, it's fine. Just recovered from a surgery. I'm still a bit shaky on my feet."

"You said I reminded you of someone?" the Doctor asked as Barbra joined her at the window. Barbara nodded.

"Yes. A...friend. An old man. I knew him and his granddaughter a long time ago, back when I had just started teaching here. They were...odd, extremely odd. I travelled with them for a bit."

"What, on a ship?" The Doctor decided to play along, feign interest until Chastity and Ian got back. Barbara laughed.  
"Yes, you could say that. A ship in the form of a police box!" the Doctor laughed with her, and they continued to do so until they heard the approaching of footsteps, and then a second later the forms of Ian and Chastity came into view.

"Your niece said that you wanted to see us together, Miss Smith. Is everything alright?" Ian asked. He hadn't followed his wife's example, and had kept his hair exactly the way it was years ago. He was wearing a dark red dress shirt, along with a black tie, and khaki pants.

"Oh, yes. Everything's fine. Just needed to...well...erm…" the Doctor turned to Chastity. "Close the door, Chastity." The dark ginger girl walked into the classroom and shut the door. Ian and Barbara glanced at each other, uneasy. The Doctor took a deep breath, then turned to them.

"Chastity is not my niece. I am not her aunt, not related to her in any way actually. She's my companion, assistant, whatever you want to call it, from eighteenth century Scotland." Chastity walked over to the Doctor, and held the psychic paper out to her. It had been torn in half, somehow, and even if the Doctor tried to close her mind and read it, she knew it wouldn't work. It had been completely destroyed. "Seriously? I give you this for five minutes, and you rip it? Really?"

"Someone cornered me in the hallway. A student." Chastity did look like she had been pushed down on the ground. Her hair was messy, and she seemed to keep the weight off her right leg.

"Oh...I'll fix you up when we get back to the TARDIS."

"The TARDIS?" Barbara exclaimed. "Then you travel with the Doctor. Where is he?"

"Right here." Chastity said. The Doctor took the paper from her hands and hit her on the head with it. "Ouch!"

"But that's impossible! The Doctor was an old man! Barbara-" Ian turned to his wife. The Doctor rolled her eyes. Honestly, sometimes humans were so...ignorant.

"Impossible! Chesterfield, you have seen thousands of impossible things with me. Is it really that big of a stretch to think of me getting a new body?" Barbara laughed.

"See, Ian? It has to be the Doctor- he always got your name wrong!" She turned to me. "Chesterton, Doctor. How many times?"

"Oh, lets not bring that up now. That body was old. It forgot things." The Doctor waved her off. "Now...I don't suppose you two are free at the moment?"

"We are." Ian responded. "But what do you need us for? Can't really go on an adventure now, can we?"

"Time machine, Ian. And no, I wasn't going to whisk you off again- or at least try not to. No...Chastity and I came back to London completly by accident, and well…noticed something perculier on the scanners back in the TARDIS. Something that had an awful lot to do with Coal Hill School."

"Well what was it?" Barbara asked, curious, but dreading the answer a little bit.

"Nothing good. Come on- the ship is in a supplies closet on the next floor. This you need to see."


	2. There Has Been A Murdur

**Coal Hill School- That Same Day**

Mr. O'Halloran sat at his desk on the fourth floor. Ungrateful idiots, he thought to himself. He wasn't being paid enough to teach them. He spent ten minutes every day trying to get them to calm down enough so he could begin teaching, then it took another ten to have all their notebooks out, and by that time only ten minutes remained for there to be actual learning done. Not one of them respected them, not one. They all had their phones under their desks and were texting while he was teaching, and he couldn't take them away because he had no proof. So Timothy O'Halloran was caught between a rock and a hard place.

Drawing his hand down his face, Mr. O'Halloran reached down into his bag and pulled out the binder he used to organize his classes. But just as he was about to open it, a strange noise came from the air vent above him. It sounded as if something were crawling through it, scraping and thudding loud enough to give him a headache. Did one of the squirrels get in? Or had a student let one in for a prank. Shaking his head, Mr. O'Halloran walked over to the grate.

The sound had gotten louder, and Mr. O'Halloran, against his better judgement, drew a chair up so he could look into the vent. "Damn animal." He peeked into the vent, though he saw nothing. The light that was nearest to it had burnt out, and he still had to call the caretaker to replace it. So he took his phone out of his pocket and turned on the flashlight.

Nothing was there, though the noise still remained. It was growing louder and louder, and though Mr. O'Halloran was a grown man, he could feel chills creeping up his spine. Then, at the very end of the darkness, two eyes became visible. They were glowing red, sinister. Mr. O'Halloran's breath caught in his throat. That was not a squirrel. Then, a mouth became visible, a misshapen human mouth, opened wider than humanly possible. A large gash was cut across its cheeks, making it look like the Joker in a way, only the entire mouth was visible. Parts of its teeth were human, but they looked like they were from different mouths. Some were baby teeth, others looked like they had fallen out of the mouth of an elderly person. Still others looked...inhumane, and were more jagged pieces of metal than teeth. As the creature drew closer, Mr. O'Halloran could hear a wheezing noise emitting from its throat, and saw that the eyes and mouth belonged to something like a decapitated mannequin head.

He was frozen in his spot. It was horrific- the man hadn't seen anything like it before. But he couldn't move, just in case it was motion activated. He needed to stay still…

It saw him. The head's eyes locked onto Mr. O'Halloran's, and it gave out a blood chilling screech, and crawled even faster toward him. The vent was banging, and it most likely could be heard from rooms away. Students and teachers could be looking up from their studies, confused. One or two might even go to investigate the noise. But they would find nothing.

The creature knocked off the grate, and Mr. Timothy O'Halloran didn't even have time to scream before it grabbed his throat in its gaping maw.

A scream came from the hallway, causing the Doctor, Ian, Barbara, and Chastity to glance up in surprise. A girl rushed in the classroom. She was dark skinned, and had a mess of curly black hair on top of her head. She looked familiar to the Doctor…

"Courtney?" the Doctor exclaimed. Courtney Woods look up at the Time Lady, puzzled.

"How did you know my…?"

"No matter. What the hell happened?" Courtney drew in a breath, before exhaling heavily.

"It's Mr. O'Halloran, my English teacher. He's...dead. Was attacked in his classroom." The Doctor and Chastity glanced at each other, both entirely certain of what this meant.

"We need to get up there. Courtney, where is his classroom?" the Doctor asked her.

"Timothy's class is just up a floor- 421." Barbara answered from beside the Doctor. The Doctor sighed and turned to her former companion.

"With all due respect, Mrs. Chesterton, I did not ask you. I asked Miss Woods. Never mind...I have what I need. The TARDIS is near there anyway."

"The TARDIS?" Courtney exclaimed. "I need to find the Doctor. He'll know what to do."

"Courtney…" the Doctor trailed off. How could she explain regeneration to a fifteen year old? Well, she had to say something. "I'm the Doctor. Don't ask questions now, just come on. You've seen the damage whatever attacked Mr. O'Halloran did. They won't leave you alone now, so it's safer to stay with us."

"But how can you be the Doctor? You're not even Scottish!"

"I'll explain later. Come on!"

They race up the stairs, hindered only a little bit by Barbara and her legs, and Ian, who insisted that he stayed with her. The Doctor had to hold back a smile when he said this. They had always acted married, her Chesterdorks. Now that they actually were, the Doctor felt a surge of pride rush through her. They were like birds who had spread their wings.

By the time they had gotten up to the fourth floor, there was a crowd gathered in front of one of the classrooms- 421, the Doctor assumed. A bit annoyed by this, and she knew her annoyance was seeping through her voice, she called out, "Move! I'm a doctor. Excuse me, I need to see what happened." The students parted like the Red Sea for her and her companions. A few wondered why two elderly teachers and a nineteen year old were with her, but those whispers were soon lost when they entered the classroom and closed the door quietly with a click behind them.

The teacher's desk was placed in the far back corner of the room, a blue rolling chair sitting behind it. The desks for the students were in neat, orderly rows, causing the Doctor to guess that the teacher who had this room was an immense neat freak, or at least had a problem with circles. Come to think of it, almost all the schools on Earth had a problem with circles...or that was what the Doctor noticed. They were always in rows, and it became dreary to the Doctor to see the same format of desks in each room every single time she went to a school. Couldn't they spice it up for once?

The desks in the back near the teacher's desk were askew, some had even been flipped over. As the Doctor, Ian, Barbara, and Chastity got closer to the mess, they could smell the metallic tang of blood. And, just at the back of the classroom, just behind one of the overturned desks, they could see a hand lying limp, a pool of blood flowing out from under it. Barbara gasped, putting her hand to her mouth. "Timothy…"

The Doctor walked over to the fallen man. Pushing the desk out of the way, she knelt over him. Mr. O'Halloran the English teacher had thinning black hair at the top of head, which originally looked like it had been combed over the top of his scalp. It was now immensely haphazard, and stuck up all over. His face was pale, and hazel eyes stared up unseeing at the ceiling of the classroom. Whatever had killed him, had done it fast enough that he didn't even have time to close his eyes before he died. The Doctor's eyes traveled down his clean shaven face, until they rested upon what seemed to be the cause of death- a large chunk of his neck had been ripped off his body, revealing the veins underneath, and the source of the still pouring blood. The Doctor knew this wasn't a normal wound, based on the fact that it wasn't clean cut. There were jagged edges all around it, and her suspicions were confirmed when she plucked a small bit of metal off the skin on his neck. Chastity walked up behind the Doctor, and looked at O'Halloran herself. Then, she gently reached over and closed his eyes, to make it look as if the teacher were sleeping. The Doctor turned to her, and shoved the bloody bit of metal in her face with her equally bloody hands.

"It wasn't human, whatever killed him. More of a machine. Or a cyborg." she said. Chastity, her nose wrinkled, took the bit of metal in her hands and turned it around in them. "Though I don't understand how anything like that would get inside a school without security noticing...oh."

"What?" Chastity looked up, pocketing the metal. Ian pointed up towards the corner of the ceiling, where the grate of a vent had been knocked aside on the wall, and a strange white substance dripped out of.

"Look, Doctor!"

The Time Lady lept up, unaware of the blood that now stained her tan cargo pants and white sneakers and socks. She leapt over an overturned desk and whipped her sonic screwdriver out of her pocket. She had not had time to change the case after the regeneration, plus, she liked the tall, blue setting. Her sunglasses had sadly broken when on that one adventure with her first self, but after a time she had gotten over them. Everyone thought they looked stupid anyways...well, everyone except Chastity that is. Then again, people from the past were always amazed by technology. It was like magic for them. The Doctor scanned the surface.

"It's plastic. Melted plastic. Like something...threw it up."

"Or it destroyed itself. Look-" Barbara pointed against the wall. "It splattered, like a large dash of paint against a canvas."

"So it destroyed itself to hide any evidence of an attack. Unluckily for them, I know exactaly what killed him- and, as I said earlier, what they're after."

"They're called 'Autons'. They've tried to take Earth multiple times, but I've always managed to stop them. Once in my third incarnation, another in my ninth, and finally now, in my thirteenth. They're made of plastic, but they are still immensily hard to destroy. You see, normal guns don't work against them, they even have their own. The only way you can destroy them is to destory whatever or whoever their leader, the Nestene Conciousness, is using as a host."

"And you think that the host that the Conciousness is residint in is inside Coal HIll?" Courtney asked the Doctor. The Time Lady nodded.

"Yes. Which brings us to what I had to show you before this happened. Quickly, back to the TARDIS."

"But, Doctor." Chastity exlaimed. "What about Mr. O'Halloran. We can't just leave him."

"He'll be fine. I'll just tell whoever is in charge that we couldn't do anything for him, and it's best to leave it to the professionals. Now, hurry. Back to the TARDIS."


	3. Autons and Entrances

Five minutes later, after pushing through a heck ton of high schoolers, the four of them stood, crammed in the small supply closet, in front of the old, blue police box. Chastity walked forward to unlock the door with her grandfather's key, while the Doctor turned to Ian and Barbara.

"I'm truly sorry for getting you two mucked up in my antics again." she sighed. "Though I suppose I should know enough to guess what would happen if I came here."

"It's not your fault." Ian said. "You said that something was targeting the school, right? So even if you weren't here, Timothy would've still gotten killed. You couldn't have prevented that. "

"I know." The Doctor shook her head quickly, as if clearing it of something. "Chastity, do you have the door open yet?"

"Yes, Doctor." Chastity pushed the door open with her shoulder and stepped inside. The Doctor smirked at Ian and Barbara as they walked into the TARDIS for the first time in almost sixty years, before following them in and closing the door behind her.

"Well, you've redecorated, Doctor." Ian remarked, looking around the room. The walls had changed from a pearly white to sooty grey, but the round, white things still remained, though they gave off a blueish hue now. A sort of hologram was displayed above the console, showing a clear picture of Earth, as well as the moon and a few other planets. The console was up a level now perched on a glass floor, with glass stairs leading up to it. The switches and buttons had been replaced with a sort of touch screen, and the time rotor stretched from it to the ceiling of the TARDIS. "It looks...completely different."

"I liked how it used to look. Why did you change it?" Barbara asked

"Why does everyone ask that question?" the Doctor exclaimed, exasperated, as she rushed up the glass stairs to the console. "My preferences change with each regeneration, each personality. I think, if Peri hadn't vetoed against it, I would've had a patchwork console room once."  
"Ew." Chastity remarked, hanging up her favourite denim jacket on the coat rack next to the door.

"It was not 'ew'!" the Doctor glared at Chastity. "I happened to have very good sense in that regeneration. No one agreed with me, I'm not even sure _I_ agreed with me, but there you have it." The Doctor touched a few of the symbols on the console rapidly, as if she had been using this new arrangement for centuries. The hologram of Earth immediately zoomed in, and only seconds later it had focused on Coal Hill school in England. "Now, I just need to scan for hostiles…and…" she presses a few more buttons. "OK. Chastity, Ian, Barbara. Come up here. This is what I think is stalking Coal Hill."

The three came up the stairs and stood next to the Doctor in front of the console. Her blonde hair looked ghost like in the light of the hologram, but she was so intent on the image that she didn't notice anyone staring at her. The image seemed to buffer for a few seconds, before settling on an image of something that looked like a store mannequin. Ian turned to the Doctor, puzzled. "Are you sure you put the right coordinates in?" He remembered clearly how the Doctor normally seemed to not know at all how to fly his ship, and wanted to make sure that what she was showing them was true.

"Yes, I'm sure. This is an auton. They're living plastic beings, controlled by the Nestene Consciousness."

"By faeries?"

"No, Chastity. Well, sort of, I guess. The Consciousness is kind of like a fairy." Chastity nods as if she understands, but the Doctor recognizes this as something her grandfather once did, and didn't believe it in the slightest.

"So what you're saying is that a store mannequin killed Mr. O'Halloran." Ian asked in disbelief.

"Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying."

"I don't believe it."

"Chesterton. Honestly. We fought giant ants one time, and allied with _butterflies_. Is this really such a stretch to believe?"

"No. No, I guess you're right. And-" he glared at the Doctor. "My tie. You destroyed my tie when we were there."

"Oh, Ian." Barbara looked at her husband with laughing eyes. "You're not still mad about that, are you?"

"Yes, I am, Barbara. That was my favorite tie." The Doctor had to resist the urge to clamp her hand over her former companion's mouth.

"Can we please get back to the matter at hand now? Or will the entire human civilization be destroyed over a _tie_?" Ian immediately shut up. "Now. Autons are invincible, practically. Guns don't hurt them. If I remember correctly, you have to sneak up behind them and hit them with a blunt object."

"Well, it sounds simple enough." Barbara remarked, furrowing her eyebrows. "But...there's a catch, isn't there?"

"Sadly." the Doctor sighed, and zoomed in onto the creature's hand. "Autons have guns themselves, hidden inside their hands and fingers. Unluckily for the human and Time Lord anatomy, we are not immune to guns like they are. So, this complicates things quite a bit."

"So that English teacher was killed by one of these things- Artons, you said?" Chastity asked from beside Barbara.

"Autons, Chastity. And no. Not exactly." the Time Lady whisked around the console, pressing a few other buttons. The image of the mannequin disappeared, and was replaced by a creature that looked like it was from some little kid's nightmares. It was just a decapitated mannequin head, the size of a small child. but it looked nothing like its predecessor. Eyes the size of golf balls portruded from its head, glowing a sinister blood red. Its nose had been cut in half, showing a jumbled mess of wires and other technology. It's mouth was filled to the brim with teeth, some sharp, others small and different shapes, as if they had been taken from multiple mouths. Chastity could be heard groaning softly.

"It's a head. A decapitated baby head. With _teeth_." she whisked around to the Doctor. " _That's_ what killed him?"

"I believe so." the Doctor zoomed in on the teeth. "See, the cuts that were made in the victim's neck weren't straight enough to be a blade of some sort, and no assassin would waste time cutting on seperate sides of the neck. They'd cut straight across, slit their throat. No, he was bitten. The throat wasn't slit, it was gone, ripped out completly. Further proving my point, the thing that bit him must've had multiple kinds of teeth in it's mouth, not all from the same person. See, there's elderly human teeth, human children teeth, animal teeth, and some...some I think are from a different planet entierly, explaining why the holes made in the skin weren't the same sizes. It also must've had a dislocatable jaw, since no human could open their mouth that wide to bite him anyway."

"Why would someone want to bite another human anyway? It's barbaric!" Barbara exclaimed.

"Why would the anchint Aztecs do rituals to please gods? It's just how they are, my dear. We're not talking about humans in the first place. These are creatures that, if given enough freedom, could destroy the world. As they have already tried to do three times."

"Yes…" Barbara seemed to remember something. "In the fall of 2005...well, now we know it _definitley_ had something to do with you, don't we?"

"Yes...that was my first time back to Earth in a long while, I believe. A long while…" the Doctor stared up into space for a minute, seemingly lost in thought. "But that's...that's a story for another time, eh? Now, " she flipped the hologram off. "Let's go find out what those little jerks are up to."


End file.
